Our resident magician jazzisparis has made it possible for us to restore the Big Guns skill. It would be an addition and no skill would be lost or replaced as it's still in the game, just disabled. We would like to hear your opinions about including it by default in TTW or if it should be optional.

We'd also like to know what you think about the potential list of weapons that would be restored to use the skill, and a few that could be changed to use it.

Since this change could be highly controversial we really want to know what our users and members think about such a change. Please take a few minutes to give us your thoughts.

Big Guns

- Automatic Rifle (based on the M1918 Browning MG)

- Light Machine Gun

- Minigun (duh)

- Eugene

- CZ57 Avenger

- K9000 Cyberdog Gun

- FIDO

- Shoulder Mounted MG

- Flamer

- Burnmaster

- Rapid Torch Flamer

- Slo-Burn Flamer

- Cleansing Flame

- Incinerator

- Heavy Incinerator

- Gatling Laser

- Fawkes Gatling Laser

- Precision Gatling Laser

- Vengeance

- Sprtel-Wood 9700

- Plasma Caster

- Smitty Special

- Tesla Cannon

- Tesla Cannon Prototype

- Elijah's Jury Rigged Tesla Cannon

- Tesla-Beaton Prototype

- Drone Cannon

- Drone Cannon ExB

- Grenade Machinegun

- Mercy

- Missile Launcher

- Miss Launcher

- Annabelle

- Fat Man

- Fat Man (GRA)

- Esther

- MIRV

- Red Glare

- Bozar

- Anti-Material Rifle

- Anti-Material Rifle (GRA)

- Arc Welder

- Rock-It Launcher

Compatibility with existing mods is not an issue. Since those mods would not be altered, they would still function exactly the same as they do now. In terms of NV weapons that would be changed to the skill, this is easily reverted by making a single change (the skill) to the weapon record. Fears of massive incompatibilities are nothing to worry about as the addition would be nearly transparent.

I like how big guns continues the tradition of the classical fallout games but always found them to be less well defined than the other weapon categories.

If it is implemented, I would want it to work with the other weapon skills rather than replacing them for the affected weapons. This would help define the skill better in my opinion and restore it as a speciality.

I don't think this would play well with Fallout NV basis. It would probably break some things in the game and it would totaly break consistency between Fallout NV mods and ttw. It is necessary to convert F3 mods but converting FNV mods just that you can play a heavy weapons build is to much for me. When the team really want to add it then as a pure optional feature that will never be integrated.

I'm all for it! I missed having Big Guns as a skill in New Vegas... getting a mini-gun in FO3 at an early level was FUN! You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn until you put some points into Big Guns... and maybe a few points into Strength. Ditto for the missile launcher.

I like this change, i feel like a character specializing into big guns has a reason to try and use what makeshift big gun you find in the early game, otherwise you end up using rifles until you acquire a big gun that is "overpowered enough to make it worth" in a sense; who would use a heavily damaged minigun they just found in the early game instead of the rifle they are already using? the guns skill makes the rifle good anyway and the minigun is so heavy, uses so much ammo and its not even that much better than the rifle! theres no reason to use it... unless you put points into the big guns skill from early on.

I wonder if weapons added by mods will be recognized as big guns, if they dont this should probably be optional otherwise it would be pretty dumb to have a 25mm cannon only work with the small guns skill and no way to change it in the mcm menu.

In FN:V there's a clear distinction between energy weapons, cartridge-based guns and explosives (the latter is... not very well defined). It could have been neat were it possible for certain weapons to have two or more skill requirements - primary and secondaries. We could then have, say, the Gatling Laser require Energy Weapons skill (as primary) and Big Guns skill (as secondary). However, IMO, this is, to a large extent, already covered in F:NV by imposing a minimum strength requirement.
I'm not sure whether Big Guns could stand on its own as a primary weapon skill. If you have a strong enough argument to justify it, then I'm all for it. :)

I think the strength requirement makes the separate skill superfluous -- the big guns perk can use a formlist instead of skill type. It doesn't really add anything IMO, there is already energy/kinetic split, and logically it doesn't make much sense that a very large energy and very large kinetic weapon would suddenly be the same while small energy and small kinetic are separate skills.

Make the Big Guns skills a default part of TTW. It's already easy to hit 100 in every skill playing the game and not deliberately gimping yourself. If you add Big Guns skill back to TTW it would make it harder to hit 100 in every skill so that is an automatic plus in my book.

That and quite frankly weapons like the flamer being energy weapons never really made sense. Flame throwers aren't exactly high tech sci-fi weapons like plasma rifles. While the Big Guns skill doesn't make a lot of sense neither does the way weapons are grouped in New Vegas either. So I would rather just have the Big Guns skill return.

I would also like to add that I'm really a Fallout 3 player that uses TTW since it adds a ton of features, the mods for New Vegas are more polished and I like to play the 3 DLCs Old World Blues, Lonesome Road and Dead Money. I really don't care much for the New Vegas base game so an addition to TTW that makes it more like Fallout 3 (looking forward to Fallout 3 repair in next TTW release) is a win in my book...although others on here I'm sure don't share my opinion.

I vote for optional so those who want to give it a go (me!) would be able to play it that way while others could keep playing with the base FNV skillset.

As far as what weapons to include in Big Guns, I'd go with anything ballistic. Leave the Fatman and Missile Launchers in Explosives and Gatling Laser and such in Energy Weapons. The Bozar, LMG, Minigun and things like that could be moved into Big Guns. The flamer, well, it doesn't really fit anywhere so it could move into Big Guns too I suppose.

Having more depth is usually best but in this case...
The amount of work it would take to properly (retro)fit+(re)balance+consistency (logic, immersion, lore, extra mods outside TTW) to commit this change into becoming a real improvement and not just "ill planned depth", I honestly think this will never be fully accomplished, so the time is better spent elsewhere.

(But then, I still think Melee Weapons should integrate Unarmed so both are merged into 1 skill, goes to show that pleasing everybodys taste is impossible.)

Compulsive post editor and CEO for the ENDLESS WAVES OF BAD DOGGIE!!
Currently trying to get the FWE Wasteland Explorer bike to work in TTW =X

- STR requirements still in place (or apply a case by case % slow effect based on how much STR is missing).
- Have each "big gun weapon" to belong into 2 different skills (big gun + either explosives or energy or guns).
- Dunno if this is needed: To measure a players REAL proficiency with these weapons, sum its two skills and halve the value. So in a way, player has to increase any of that weapon skills by 2 points at a time, to actually get a base 1 point of real increase (afterall it must get to 200 points, 100 in each skill, to use it a 100% efficiency).

These "dual-skilled" weapons gotta be somewhat IMBA and more powerful than one-skill weapons (kinda makes sense because certain weapons are just that badass, talking real life here), to compensate it taking longer to acquire 100%. Be it range, spread, aim, damage, reload, ease-of-use, combinations of these categories, whatever.

PS: Change name from 'Big Guns' to 'Big Weapons', so that when someone (maybe me ^^) finally gets Unarmed to be "absorbed" by Melee Weapons, the big Melee Weapons can also use Big Weapons category as a badassery increasing parameter.

Compulsive post editor and CEO for the ENDLESS WAVES OF BAD DOGGIE!!
Currently trying to get the FWE Wasteland Explorer bike to work in TTW =X

Totally up for this! If follwoing fallout 3, your young, first real encounter was a bb gun, and a radroach. So when you get a minigun/gataling gun, should require some skill to be effective both effective range and damage (comes with literially xp) :D Cant say how excited i am for 3.0! i have the urge for some TTW :D

As for me, I was quite glad to find that Big Guns skill does not exist in F:NV. Actually, this particular skill seemed redundant for me since Fallout 1 for a number of reasons:

First, Big Guns in classic Fallout games could not be used as primary weapons, because they appeared relatively late in the game, consumed enormous amounts of ammo, and were mostly useless against heavily armoured enemies without correct set of perks. So, at least for me, their inefficiency outweighed their benefits.

Second, in Fallout 3 big guns inherited all their negative traits from previous games and received some more. From my point of view it mostly happened because of mechanics changes. As stated above, in classic Fallout (especially, Fallout 2) heavy weapons depended on perks increasing critical chance (Sniper + high Luck) and damage of critical attacks. It lead to large amount of critical hits that mostly bypassed the armour or just instantly killed character while their primary damage was completely absorbed by armour. So, getting to the point, in classic Fallout high rate of fire equals to large amount of critical hits, while in Fallout 3 weapons with high rate of fire (most notably, minigun) have significantly less chance to score critical hit ignoring the armour, and their critical damage is often just 0 points.

Third, new armour system in F:NV just put the last nail to the coffin of heavy weapons as separate weapon class. As DT system favours weapons with high damage per shot, high-DPS weapons, such as minigun or gatling-laser were mostly harmless to enemies. It is somewhat mitigated by addition of AP rounds and 5 mm ammo innate increased penetration, but comprising a separate weapon skill of weapons with questionable efficiency (except missile launcher and fat man) would be pretty much imbalanced. And to justify the use of weapons with high rate of fire and low damage per projectile Obsidian introduced quite hacky solution: no matter, what DT a character has, 20% of weapon damage will pass through the armour. It basically made power armour useless, and created weird situations when increasing of DT just lead to increasing of received damage.

As a conclusion to previous statements, I will try to explain the solution I see.

First, automatic ranged weapons shall have the same chance to score critical hit to enemies, as semi-automatic. The best solution, from my point of view, is equal critical multiplier (x1) for all weapons (maybe, except really special ones, like Alien Blaster) and critical damage equal to normal damage.

Second, lower minimal damage ignoring the armour to ~1 %, so fraction of damage made by low damage weapon would just small enough to trigger critical damage which will deal actual damage. For example, 50 round burst from light machine gun will deal almost no damage against power armour, but 5 rounds (if critical chance is 10 %) will deal some damage. So armour with high DT will actually protect without making character invulnerable, while machine gunner will deal some damage even without armour penetration.

I am sorry for being a bit off the topic, but in conclusion I would say that I am not against return of separate Big Guns skill, but not in the current game mechanics and total lack of low-tier heavy weapons.

PS. I had the idea stated above for a very long period of time, but my lack of modding and programming experience prevented me from testing it.

This sounds like a hell of a lot of work to just make it optional, surely if this is implemented it should be fully integrated so that the affected perks/weapons/character interactions/quests(?) etc. will be corrected to reflect this change.

Pretty straight-forward so this should be the basis of the list of weapons that we should be looking at so that the existing 'Guns' skill isn't too severely nerfed.

Now where the tricky overlaps start is when we introduce energy weapons into this list. Since they are already under the 'Energy Weapons' skill, is that too going to be changed? If so then perhaps the same criteria can be employed ie. any energy weapon 15 pounds or over is now a 'Big Guns' weapon and should shift into that skill's list of affected weapons.

Some of the Tesla Cannons are too light and should not be in the 'Big Guns' list.

Then we get into the 'Explosives' weapons like the Missile Launchers or the Grenade Launchers. These too should not be included as they are already under their own skill. Unless you foresee a complete change of the 'Explosives' skill also.

Even though the Big Guns skill was a nice part of fallout 3, I do believe that it is not really needed in a fallout NV style setting. My reason being is that the big guns are the ultimate form of the base weapon skills. Going from a 9mm pistol at level one to a bad ass minigun at level 100 in guns skill. Its all under the same umbrella. Now the counter argument would be that it would limit the play styles of others. What ever you guys decide to do i'm game for both.

Big Guns as a "bonus" skill would be neat, one that gets trained outside of the normal path, (Hidden on level up)

Example: Big Guns books as a quest reward from Big Guns factions (Boomers, Brotherhood, etc) or found in armories.

The skill would ideally improve accuracy and possibly -DT addressing the major issues with Big Guns.

It would be completely acceptable for this to be a skill that never reaches it's cap, if there are only 10 books in the game and they award 3 points each, 30 would be the soft-cap, regardless of how high the skill can go on a technical level.

Honestly from the responses so far it's basically 1/3 for bringing the Big Guns skill back, 1/3 against bringing the Big Guns skill back and 1/3 who are indifferent to whether it's brought back or not.

As far as some of the complaints about the big guns skill like a lack of low tier weapons...I'm guessing the poster making that comment never used the Rock-It Launcher in Fallout 3. It's a schematic weapon one of which you can purchase off Moira in Craterside supply in Megaton. The Rock-It Launcher allows you to turn everything from a pencil to mutilated organs into ammo to use against enemies. It's the only weapon in the game outside the recharger rifle and pistol that I can think off of the top of my head that has unlimited ammo.

For all of us that use to do Big Gun builds in fallout 3 back before Broken Steel came out where you couldn't be a God at everything that weapon was the go to weapon of early levels until you start killing a bunch of supermutants and get miniguns and missile launchers. Even then the Rock-It Launcher was still extremely useful. The only way a Big Guns build is really beyond a pain in the ass is if you use the optional file and start in New Vegas instead of DC.

As far as Big Guns damage against power armor with New Vegas mechanics...to be blunt most weapons suck against power armor in New Vegas. However a missile launcher will kill enclave hellfire troops just fine...so it's not that big of an issue unless you are just doing nothing but minigun flavor run.

As far as ammo like 5mm goes while rarer in TTW than in Fallout 3 game due to supermutants having almost exclusively incinerators instead of miniguns like they had in Fallout 3 you still have the ability to craft ammo at ammo benches. Plus if memory serves me right you can get 5mm ammo by trading with the outcasts with the outcast trading optional plugin.

As far as mod conflicts go given the size of this mod and changes in 3.0 most mods big mods Project Nevada, WMX, EVE, Interiors, More Perks etc. are going to need to be updated and need to have new patches. So a few New Vegas mods needing patches as well if Big Guns is added back into the game is not a huge deal considering most things will need to updated anyway to work with the new TTW 3.0

Also considering Fallout 3's repair system is going to be made default in the next version of TTW and the current New Vegas version made optional that could lead to potential mod conflicts and the TTW team is going ahead with it so I'm not seeing the big deal here.

Side note, FO3 repair is not enabled by default, it will be optional. That goes for DT/DR bypass on some weapons also.

Back on topic.

The skill itself was part of every Fallout game prior to New Vegas, and the weapon list is based directly on the list of weapons included in that skill in those games, Fallout 3 is the main basis, with a few weapons from Fallout 2 and Tactics added. I've already received feedback from other channels that would want the BAR and AMR removed from that list. The argument is strong for the BAR so it's likely to be removed, the AMR not so much and will probably stay. The main category of weapons in the skill are 2 hand handle and 2 hand launcher weapons, which are all presently included in the list.

Weapons cannot have multiple skills, this cannot be implemented easily and won't.

The skill cannot be hidden from the level up menu, that defeats the purpose of restoring it.

Size Matters perk has already been restored prior to the skill and adds spread reduction and damage increase instead of boosting the Big Guns skill and uses basically the same list of weapons, and it will remain regardless.

A couple people have expressed their opinion to me privately, so I will outline what they said here.

In favor of it.

Pros:

something to do with those skill points after level 40 or so when there is no skills left to put them in.

increased role playing options, creating a heavy weapons build.

more options for modding purposes when it comes to skills available for dialogue checks, weapons, npc skills and classes.

Cons:

overlapping skill sets

the strength requirements added by nv do this already in a way

Thank you all for your feedback, please continue as it's helping me form an opinion on what to do.

I like how big guns continues the tradition of the classical [sic] fallout games but always found them to be less well defined than the other weapon categories.

I think the most consistent criteria for Big Guns are what Roy mentions, below:

RoyBatty wrote:

2 hand handle and 2 hand launcher weapons

...and probably which all slow down the player when equipped. So regardless of what type of damage they do, whether it's a flamer, gauss minigun or rocket launcher, Big Guns are all handled differently from other types of weapons.

The variety of Big Guns which span several sub-categories can be seen as a benefit to the player who invests in the skill, IMO, enabling one to enjoy a little bit of everything.

Snatching a weapon out from under an existing skill and moving under another isn't a problem - just upgrade both weapon skills. Or not. Choice is good.

Where will the Survival bobblehead be moved to when the Big Guns " is restored to its original location in Ft. Constantine? :P

This would allow strategic use of them with low skill, for example setting up at a choke point at the mouth of a canyon. This would certainly create a clear difference between skills. It is no longer a matter of weight, its a matter of learning to manage the bulk of these weapons.

"I am a master of Energy Weapons!"

"Yeah, but this really only has one button... I think I can 'master' that..."

I originally voted optional but it might be easier just to integrate the skill into the game and provide a patch that returns the weapons mentioned back to their base skill for those that don't want to use Big Guns. The Big Guns skill would still show up in game with that patch but it wouldn't be used for anything as the weapons would return to their original classification with the patch.

If you're really trying to handle energy weapons properly, they should really all depend on small guns and big guns WITHOUT a separate energy weapons skill. There's really no difference between ballistic and energy weapons that can't be handled by one or possibly two perks. The skills themselves says it all: GUNS. An energy gun is still a gun. The only difference would be a perk for leading targets/accounting for ballistic flight of projectiles, and another perk of fixing energy weapons.

Energy weapons should start as more accurate and easy to hit the target, where a projectile weapon should be harder until you get one or more levels in a perk dealing with ballistics. Conversely, a projectile gun should be easier to fix until you put one or more levels in a perk dealing with fixing electronic devices. But beyond that, small and big guns as a skill SHOULD cover both.

I'm gonna be a bit bothersome and voice a small concern between everything that's "optional" or "by default".

It is usually better to have the stuff that everyone will (or should) be using to be the default. I'm not voicing pro/con any optionals, just wanna highlight what would be the best approach, player base wise. TTW policy conflicts with that sometimes.

There's supposed to be a "right way" (AKA best way), not literally, but a way that the main design was planned/executed/tested taking into account that set of conditions, which speaks volumes since a TON of time was spent tailoring the game to fit better into this set of conditions.

Like (I guess) most people, I try to always abide by what is default, since it is usually best/safer, but even above that: Default implies the way IT IS meant to be.

Back to this big guns deal, I'm not educated enough in TTW ways to make a decision, hope you guys can make the best of it =]

Compulsive post editor and CEO for the ENDLESS WAVES OF BAD DOGGIE!!
Currently trying to get the FWE Wasteland Explorer bike to work in TTW =X

Also why not put up a poll instead of just having the discussion here? I created an account just to chime in on this issue but if you look at the JIP LN Poll you can tell there's a whole lot of people who are interested in TTW but don't have forum accounts here.

We want to hear from people and their opinions, we rarely hear from a large part of our community. It's nice to know what you guys like and don't. Polls don't really tell us much. :)

It would not cause huge incompatibilities, as I've already added to the OP.

If you want to get that going now, you can download the latest JIP-LN-NVSE and enable FO3 repair in its INI file.

I've been using it for a short while now, and it seems to work fine.

As for the actual question, I do like the idea of bringing it back. I agree with TrickyVein about Big Guns spanning multiple categories not necessarily being a bad thing; allowing the player to get a little bit of everything in it, and it being heavy-duty, could be a really good way of balancing it, especially if it's broad, but you don't get as much depth in the other categories without specializing in them.

For example, the Recharger Rifle wouldn't operate quite right if you don't have the skill to use it, but something like the Gatling Laser lets you sort of experience Energy without dedicating yourself to it off the bat.

The same goes for Assault Rifles, where the Minigun is an ammo-hungry, death-spewing machine, the Assault Rifle is a bit more controlled and efficient in its death-dealing. You get to see the potential in Big Guns, but without specialization, you aren't getting the full package.

Of course, you could argue that it's weird to have a skill that's so broad, when everything else is relatively specific in what they deal with. There's also the fact that you still need to put your points into the skill to use these Big Guns properly for the taste of other skills... I don't know, I don't think I'm a balancing expert.

They aren't specific though, handling a .22 pistol is a completely different ballgame than an assault rifle or sniper rifle, or a minigun. That particular argument doesn't hold weight with me, so I'm curious to see other valid ones. Energy weapons are also the same physically as ballistics ones, so Energy Weapons could be eliminated too and it just called Fire Arms. At that point, many of the Explosives weapons could also fall in that category. The Grenade Launcher and Rifle are infact... rifles that shoot center fire grenade rounds. So in vanilla there is a bit of overlap and blurring.

As for the plasma *caster* it's a caster not a rifle like the previous games, 2 hand handle not rifle grip. The Gatling Laser was moved to big guns by Fallout 3 because of the 2 hand handle thing. I would put them in that category just to give it a bit more weapons and usefulness.

Again this is all hypothetical, no decision has been made, nothing is written in stone.